Normally, however, editors work with contributors on their submissions. The process usually requires a last look by contributors to the edited material for any last-minute issues created by the editing. Why did the two reporters sign off on the submission rather than insist that the key sentence be restored to provide the proper context, perhaps with a redaction in place of the woman’s name? O’Donnell doesn’t ask, and the two never volunteer an answer.
Mollie Hemingway isn’t buying it for another reason. First, as she initially noted on Twitter, the two sat around for at least a full day without speaking up about the missing sentence and context, even when it started getting noticed. More importantly, though, Hemingway discovered that the two left out the same information in an NPR interview that was taped late last week before the NYT “adaptation” had been published:
In response to a question about any other women coming forward, the authors excitedly tell Max Stier story, never mentioning that they never spoke to the woman or that she denied it through several friends. Difficult to blame this on editing.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 17, 2019
Not only that, but the two also discuss with NPR how Leland Keyser helps to establish Christine Blasey Ford’s credibility without ever once mentioning that Keyser told them explicitly that she doesn’t find Blasey Ford credible. That’s before they get to Stier’s story, which was a secondhand bit of gossip about something so inconsequential that the alleged victim doesn’t recall it at all. The authors also claim that they “haven’t found motivations for them to lie,” even though Blasey Ford’s attorney admitted last week that part of their motivation in coming forward was to defend Roe v Wade and to “put an asterisk” next to Kavanaugh’s name in perpetuity.
In what alternative universe is this? It does the opposite. It destroys her credibility even more than her flimsy lies in the first place.